THE NATION: EDITORIAL: One dictat

Editorial & Opinion
EDITORIAL: One dictator
down, others will follow
Suharto is known as ''Bapak
Pembangunan'' (Father of Development).
Indonesia's new leader Jusuf Habibie,
apparently, covets the title ''Bapak
Reformasi'' (Father of Reform). Critics,
however, are not so sure he deserves it.
After all, he belongs to Suharto's old-order
regime. And at best he is simply a
caretaker president until the military finds
somebody to replace him.
Indeed, it is going to be hard for Habibie to
confound the skeptics. In a country where
the leader is traditionally from the majority
Javanese community, Habibie is from
far-flung Sulawesi. Furthermore, as a
technocrat, he has never been a military
man. In addtion, when he was minister for
research and technology Habibie bought
dozens of destroyers from the defunct East
German Navy, a decision which infuriated
the military -- most of the ships were in such
poor condition that they had to be towed
from Europe.
To compound his problems, the swift move
by military chief Wiranto to sideline his
rivals in the wake of Suharto's resignation
did not bode well for the new president.
Wiranto is now unquestionably the real
power behind the throne.
With the military snapping at his heels,
unemployment topping 10 million and food
shortages looming, Habibie is not likely to
last long. But whatever the future, Indonesia
will never go back to the dark days of a
Suharto dictatorship -- the democracy
genie has crawled out of the bottle. Last
week's downfall of Suharto has clearly
changed the political landscape of not just
Indonesia but the rest of Southeast Asia.
The end of one of Asean's founding fathers
now leaves Malaysian Prime Minister
Mahathir Mohamad as the longest-ruling
leader in the region. Mahathir, a staunch
supporter of Suharto, had just two weeks
ago blamed foreigners for trying to oust
both himself and Suharto. Now he is forced
to eat his words and acknowledge that
there is indeed a genuine pro-democracy
movement in Indonesia.
With key Asean countries such as Thailand,
the Philippines and now Indonesia, having
new leaders, Mahathir will be a very lonely
man. As Malaysia's longest-serving prime
minister -- 17 years in all -- Mahathir will
come under growing pressure to step
down. Already some are comparing his rule
to the cronyism, nepotism and corruption
that has characterised Indonesia. Only
recently, his son's ailing business empire
was bailed out by a state-owned
corporation.
But of all the dictators nervously watching
for fallout from the Indonesian crisis,
Burma's military junta should be feeling a
shiver run down its spine. It hopes to
guarantee itself a permanent role in the
country's political future with a constitution
based on the Indonesian model, which
gives the military responsibilities for both
defence and development. But of more
significance, however, is the likelihood of
Burmese students taking the lead from their
Indonesian colleagues and once again
challenging the junta. All Burmese
universities have been closed since 1996,
but the junta realises that it cannot continue
to deny education to a whole generation of
citizens.
Perhaps, too, Sultan Bolkiah of Brunei, one
of the richest men in the world, may be
thinking twice about absolute monarchy
since his father killed democracy in 1962
when he suspended the constitution.
Bolkiah has been at the centre of a slew of
sex scandals. In March, former Miss USA
Shannon Marketic, who claims she was
held against her will at Bolkiah's palace,
filed another lawsuit against the sultan to
follow an earlier suit which was thrown out
of a US court after Bolkiah successfully
argued for sovereign immunity. A separate
suit by a disgruntled business partner in
London against Bolkiah's brother Prince
Jefri, which claimed that he used the
sultanate-owned Dorchester Hotel to keep
a ''harem'' of prostitutes, was eventually
settled out of court. Such salacious
scandals are not taken lightly in Islamic
Brunei.
So last week's ouster of Suharto, while not
quite a real change of government in
Indonesia, nevertheless represents the
beginning of a new era. It proves also the
unceasing yearning of the people in
Southeast Asia, and elsewhere, for
democracy. But political democracy alone
can never guarantee prosperity for all. For
that, leaders will have to ensure that the
poor majority be given their fair share of the
nation's wealth. This is especially true in a
region where wide disparity remains
despite breathtaking growth over the past
decade and where the destitute are
bearing the brunt of the current economic
meltdown.
Now that Southeast Asia has made great
strides in political democracy, perhaps the
same must be done with economic
democracy.
The Nation